About 4.2 million Californians are affected by the drop in benefits, including more than 1.1 million residents of Los Angeles County. And many local businesses will be hurt as well, because California's food stamp recipients will be spending $46million less per month in local stores.

"The impoverished are forced to eat junk if we want to eat," said 32-year-old Tabitha, a mother of a 2-year-old and a 7-year-old staying at a Culver City shelter, who asked that her last name not be used because she said she was embarrassed. "It's going to be difficult, as it already has been."

The cut was triggered by the expiration of stimulus spending Congress approved in the depths of the Great Recession. It is unlikely to be the last...

More than one in seven Wisconsinites — including 379,000 children and 164,000 seniors — will see their monthly food stamp benefits fall in November as provisions from a 2009 economic stimulus law phase out.

I don't even know where to begin. I'm shaking mad, no exaggeration. And this is just in California and Wisconsin, for f's sake.

Not only are children's lives in danger-- as well as adults'-- but parents are feeling humiliated-- humiliated because they're working their asses off and can't afford food!-- as they barely scrape by, scared silly and worried about where their family's next meal is coming from.

Again, a good many of these families are WORKING families. That cannot be emphasized enough.

Plus, what all too many of these Americans are eating is junk that will simply kill them more slowly than not eating at all.

While all of this is going on, right in front of our eyes like a damned slo-mo train wreck, we're managing to further destroy a very, very sluggish economy that has been steadily, but slowly improving.

Thank you, Republicans. This is on you... and your unrelenting cruelty.

While Democrats keep trying to pass laws that would (hopefully) make things easier for many of us, the GOP is blocking their attempts at every turn, and has been since President Obama was elected.

That's the difference between the parties. One wants to help, one wants to destroy.

Are you seething yet? Well, buckle your seat belts gang, because you're in for a bumpy ride. This video, a must-watch, won't help:

Economist Jeffrey Sachs was on "All In with Chris Hayes" and nailed it. I mean, he really, really nailed it:

It is an agenda of cruelty beyond belief. ... But it's unbelievable what this country is coming to, which is actually taking -- literally, food from the hungriest children in this country. it is disgusting, there is no rationale for it.

It would be simple to fund this. In fact, simple to fund it from the richest people in this country who get tax breaks galore, often pay no taxes whatsoever, and the abuse of our spirit, our morality, is shocking, and this today is one of the worst things we've seen, period...

You'd probably get about $3 billion a year from the 40 people alone.

I have here...a piece of legislation submitted by Senator Levin, which is all of the worst tax phony loopholes for American companies, putting their money in the Caymans, this is $220 billion over ten years, it's not about raising tax or anything. It's about closing the most disgusting, egregious loopholes; we could feed our children decently without breaking a sweat...

The whole thing is a game for tax breaks at the top... And that, I think, a lot of people unfortunately don't see because that's all disguised. This isn't about taxing the middle class to pay for this. This about the taxes at the top that aren't paid. And we have our biggest companies putting money in Bermuda, putting money in the Cayman Islands. Earning profits and paying no taxes on them at all and lo and behold, we're told there's no money for the poorest people in the country.

Jonah Goldberg accurately describes some of the Republican Party's problems, but he is deluding himself if he truly believes its main issue is that it isn't doing a good job of persuading Americans.

The real problem for the Republican Party is the extreme ideological views of its core constituencies. The religious right believes God is on its side; economically conservative Republicans believe in failed policies of deregulation and trickle-down tax rules; climate-change deniers believe global warming is a hoax; the GOP money establishment maintains that giving money to politicians is free speech rather than legalized bribery; and the gun-rights wing is opposed to any sensible measures on firearms.

The problem is not that Republicans haven't done a good job of persuading but rather that their views are unpersuasive.

Michael Asher

Valley Village

***

Goldberg expresses his frustration that conservatism is not connecting with the masses. Could it be because many Americans rely on the basic government safety nets that the conservatives want to eliminate? And when the religious right hijacked the GOP, it turned off moderate conservatives.

Goldberg doesn't address these issues, but they are a big part of the reason voters have turned away from the GOP. And until the party realizes that the demographic changes in this country don't favor Republicans, it will continue to lose national elections.

Acclaimed author, Berkeley professor, and Clinton-era Secretary of Labor Robert Reich lays out the what, why and how of the Fiscal "Cliff", the showdown in Congress that Republicans created to demand painful cuts in vital domestic programs in exchange for raising taxes on the top 2%. Learn the facts, and the best way out of this forced showdown.

Jobs come first. Prosperity, not austerity. Makes sense to me.

Oh, and it's a fiscal crossroads, not a cliff. At worst, it's a slope or a curb... or a hiccup. This is a self-created "crisis" that the GOP is trying to use in order to cut programs that are there for the health and welfare of American citizens who need assistance in order to, you know, live.

The first thing to know about the so-called "fiscal cliff" is that it's not a cliff—it's a choice. It's a choice between making the 1% richer at the expense of everyone else, or lifting up 100% of Americans. It's a choice between American prosperity and European austerity.

In this sharp new video, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich breaks down the fiscal choice in 2 minutes and 30 seconds—with pictures too. And he gives Democrats the inside scoop on how to fight and win this fiscal showdown for the middle class.